123.

  I hadn't stopped to wait and see what became of my pursuer. I heard a lot of flapping wings, and squawking, which was enough to let me know that the Pigeon King would at least throw my pursuer off long enough for me to get home. I took the most direct and quickest route home, flying across the rooftops, making a beeline for my sanctuary. Speed was of the essence. I was fairly certain whoever or whatever was pursuing me didn't know where I lived, and as long as I got home and off the streets, I would be safe for another night.

  As I ran home, I heard the Pigeon King's words rolling around in my head, the creeping fear in his voice and the sharpness of his tone. I'd come to learn with the Pigeon King that sometimes, when he was his most brusque and rude, it was usually when he was his most afraid. I had hoped he would answer all my questions and explain what the Syndicate was up to. But instead, he had left me with more questions than answers. However, one thing I knew for certain was that whatever the Syndicate was doing was evil and terrifying.

  In the back of my mind, I rolled around the Pigeon King's other comments about supernatural wars and things from the past rising again, but I pushed them to one side. Whatever the hell was going on in the supernatural world was none of my concern. If it wasn't happening on the Mulberry Estate, it wasn't part of my remit. I had more pertinent fish to fry much closer to home. I had to figure out what the hell the Syndicate was doing and why. Why were they arming gangs on the Mulberry Estate and what did it have to do with sacrificing human beings in a macabre blood ritual. If the Pigeon King couldn't answer my questions, I only had one other source of knowledge, and that was the Codex.

  I tumbled back through my window, leapt up, slammed the window shut, and made sure the seal was intact. My door was still quadruple locked, but I checked it anyway and all the Runes around the room to make sure they were also intact. When I was satisfied I was safe, I threw my gear off and pulled the Codex out from its hiding place along with the nub of the blood-red candle. The Codex had warned me to never read it without the candle lit. I had been studying the book so often the candle was little more than the length of the tip of my thumb. The problem was I don't ever remember acquiring or creating the candle; it just sort of appeared one day, and I didn't know how to get another one. I mentally added that problem to the ever growing heap of future Alex’s shit pile. For tonight, I had more pressing concerns, and I had enough candle left for another study session at least.

  I set the Codex down on my desk, stretched my neck, placed the candle down next to it, and lit it before turning the lights off in my room. I paused for a second, as I always did, and listened. There was no whispering. I peered around my room, and there were no dark silhouettes hunched in any corners, waiting to spring out at me. I was safe. I sighed deeply and sat down, pushing my mind into that place of perfect calm and stillness, gathering my thoughts, before opening the Codex.

  There was a thin metal needle sandwiched between the book’s pages. I slipped this out and flicked to a blank page. I let the needle dance over the flame before pricking the tip of my index finger. I squeezed the digit until a dewdrop of blood formed, then turned my finger over and let it fall onto the page. The Codex reacted instantly. I saw the blood seeping and swirling around the dry, crisp pages of the book. Then I picked up my pen and began. I'd learned I could communicate with the Codex sometimes by talking to it, but I got the best answers when I wrote them down. However, the Codex wasn't simply some search engine, it was alive. It had its own personality, its own whims, its own desires, and sometimes it would tell me exactly what I wanted to know, and other times it would lead me on a merry dance. And there were times when it would just spit back random excerpts from its former owner's life. I assumed they were supposed to be lessons to be learned from those stories, but I was always too dull to figure them out. Reading wasn't one of my strong points. I preferred my information blunt and to the point rather than wrapped in allegory or metaphor.

  But today, I had rather straightforward questions and hoped for straightforward answers. I pictured the sacrifice chamber again in my mind. I saw those cages, saw the blood-covered dais, and those Runes etched in dripping blood. Fighting down creeping nausea, I picked up my pen and posed my first question to the Codex:

  Wat is blood magic and humon sacrafyce? I wrote, scratching the side of my head and wondering if that was the best way to phrase it

  The pages of the Codex shifted before my eyes, the ink bleeding and reforming as if the book itself was breathing. The words appeared slowly, deliberate, as though savouring the question I had dared to ask.

  Blood magic is the first wound. Knowledge always cuts before it heals.

  Blood is the oldest contract. Before ink, before law, before whispered oaths in candlelight, there was only blood. It binds. It calls. It remembers.

  Blood is not merely spent: it is given. And when given, it lingers. The dead never remain silent. Their essence stains the walls, the floor, the very air. If you listen closely, you will hear their whispers in the mortar, feel their despair in the cold stone beneath your feet. But to listen too closely is to invite them in.

  I sighed. It was going to be one of those sessions. With my head in my hands, I mouthed along as I read and reread the passage. Fortunately, I could read almost all of the words and I understood most of them. It took a while but I think I had the gist of it. I picked my pen up again and wrote: ‘Wat were they doing?’

  The ink twisted and swirled.

  Making an offer. Blood is the key, and pain is the lock. Open one, and something will come through. Always. The question is not what they were summoning, but whether they succeeded. If they failed, then something waits, hungry and incomplete. If they succeeded, then it is already here.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Do you wish to know how it is done? Would you press your own palm to the threshold? Would you carve the Runes into your own flesh? Would you trade a heartbeat for a whisper, a memory for a Name? Some doors do not close once opened. Some wounds do not stop bleeding."

  The ink settled, but the book felt heavier now, as if it was watching, waiting for an answer. I swallowed and read carefully.

  My hand trembled but I firmly wrote my response: ‘No.’

  The book fell silent.

  ‘I fuond Roons made from blood. Wat are they I don’t reckongise them.’

  As I wrote I pictured the giant, glistening Runes above the cages.

  The Codex shifted, the pages curled at the edges as ink seeped through the parchment like veins. The text twisted itself into being as if reluctant to reveal what it knew. The Hollow Tongue spoke, and its words crawled in my mind like something with too many legs.

  ‘You have seen them, then. The great wound-scars. The letters carved in agony. Do you feel them still, even after leaving that place? That is because they were not written for the eye, but for the world itself. Runes drawn in blood are never truly erased. They linger. They whisper. They wait.

  You ask what they mean. Foolish child. You already know. Did you not shiver when you saw them? Did your stomach not churn, your breath not hitch? Runes of blood do not need translation. They are felt. They are understood in the marrow.

  “What do they mean?” I asked aloud, my mouth dry and my voice a harsh croak.

  ‘Write them and I shall tell you’

  My hand froze above the page. The nib a millimetre from the page. I gritted my teeth in frustration.

  ‘No’ I scratched out on the page.

  Good. You are learning.

  I felt a shiver run through my body. I always had to remember, the Codex wasn’t my friend. It wasn’t an ally. It couldn’t be trusted.

  But if you must have words, then read carefully.

  The 8 sided chamber weakens the veil. You have seen the marks left by those who would carve a doorway with flesh. What was taken there has not left.

  The first was a Binding. A chain fashioned not from iron, but from life. The blood of the willing is an invitation. The blood of the unwilling is a leash. That mark was meant to tether something vast, something patient, something that does not belong in your world.

  The second was a Gateway. It was incomplete, yes? You saw the breaks, the hesitation in the brushstrokes, the spaces where blood had dried before the shape could be finished? That is fortunate. A full gateway hums with a sound no ear can hear. It does not open to a place, but to a presence.

  The third is a Name. Not one you would recognise, not one you could speak without choking on your own tongue, but a Name all the same. Blood is memory. Blood is promise. A Rune like that is not simply a name, it is a summons. An attempt to call something forgotten back into flesh. And Names, once called, do not easily go back to sleep.

  I felt my heartbeat quickening and swallowing suddenly became difficult. The words were swimming in front of me and I felt fatigue settling in. This level of communication with the book was draining and required immense focus and energy. I had to be quick.

  ‘Wat were they trying to sumen?’

  The words did not form immediately. The Codex hesitated, its pages shuddering, the ink stalling like breath caught in a throat. And then, slowly, deliberately, it answered.

  ‘No. You ask, but you do not want the answer.

  You think knowledge is a lantern in the dark. It is not. It is a door left ajar, and some things do not need an invitation to step through.

  You stood among the Runes. You smelled the iron and salt, felt the weight of the air, the wrongness in the walls. Tell me, did it feel like something was coming? Or did it feel like something was already there?

  You ask what they were summoning, but that is the wrong question. You should be asking why they believed they could control it. Why they thought they would be spared. Why they thought they were worthy of its attention.

  But you do not ask that. You ask for a Name. You want to speak it, to understand it. And that is where I refuse you.

  There are Names you do not speak, not because they are forgotten, but because they will remember you.

  There are things you do not summon, not because they cannot be summoned, but because they will never leave.

  You press your hand against the fire and wonder why it burns.

  No. I will not answer you. And if you are wise, you will stop asking.

  The air had grown colder and I could feel my body trembling. I needed to know more. I could do it. I gritted my teeth and forced my hand to move.

  ‘Somthing is folowing me, since I left that playce. Wat is it?’

  The pages twitched beneath my fingers, the ink beading like sweat. The book had always been confident, arrogant, even, but this time, there was uncertainty. When the words finally formed, they were jagged, uneven, like something spoken between clenched teeth.

  ‘I do not know.

  I have whispered truths that turned empires to dust. I have spoken of things buried so deep in time that even the dead have forgotten them. But this? This thing that follows you? It is unknown to me.

  That should unsettle you.

  I have seen what lurks beyond the veil, the things that creep between the ribs of the world. I have named them, mapped them, unmade them. But this shadow at your back? It has left no footprints in history, no echoes in the blood of those who came before you.

  Either it is nothing.

  Or it is something new.

  And there is nothing new.

  The words stopped forming, but the page felt restless, the ink uneasy in its place. The book was uncomfortable. And that, more than anything else it had said, was reason to be afraid. I was beginning to fade. My eyes were becoming heavy.

  ‘How can I stop them?’

  ‘You assume it can be stopped.’

  The words settled into the parchment like deep scars and then began to fade. My eyes drooped and the pen fell from my grasp. Just before I collapsed to the floor, I heard something exhale behind me and the candle went out.